AAA: SWB rained out
AA: Trenton rained out.
High A: Tampa (63-71) split a DH.
Reg. sched. game: Lost 4-0, getting just 2 hits. SS Diego Castillo’s 3 errors led to 3 unearned runs.
Makeup of 8/27 rainout: Won 5-3. Castillo 2 hits, RBI. 1B Steven Sensley 2 hits, 2 RBI.
Low A: Charleston (69-66) lost 8-5. LF Canaan Smith 2 hits, .306. RF Josh Stowers 2 RBI. C Eduardo Navas 3 hits, 2 RBI. 2 solo HR.
Posted in Mike's Musings, Minor Leagues, Players, Regular Season
From MLB.com
Yankees (Surprise): Daniel Bies, RHP; Glenn Otto, RHP; Donny Sands, C; Josh Stowers, OF; Brandon Wagner, 1B
Acquired from the Mariners in an offshoot of the Sonny Gray trade in January, Stowers has a chance to have four average or better tools, with his arm the lone exception. Otto has had difficulty staying healthy but can reach 97 mph and devastate hitters with his curveball when he’s at 100 percent.
Posted in Mike's Musings, Minor Leagues, Players
Joe Girardi in Philadelphia now has a SS he is very familiar with.
After the Yanks wouldn’t offer Didi the QO of $17.8 MM, Didi has gone to Philly to join Girardi at a one year deal of $14MM.
Maybe the Yanks can throw that Didi $$ to Cole.
But the Yanks might have been hoping Didi would come back at less than $17.8 MM. He did not.
Didi only signed a 1 yr deal, so he is hoping that a good 2020 re-establishes his value after a 2019 that did see 16 HR, 61 RBI in only 1/2 a season, but a .238 batting average as well as a significant amount of time missed.
It may be safe to say that Didi, in his short term with the Yankees, may be the 3rd best SS in Yankees history behind Derek Jeter and Phil Rizzuto. Who would you say would be better? Dent? Crosetti? Kubek? Koenig? I would put Didi #3, above all but Derek and the Scooter.
Named to the All-MLB team: D.J. LeMahieu 1st team and Aroldis Chapman 2nd team.
Posted in Awards, Ex-Players, Mike's Musings, Offseason Moves, Players
It would have been nice to see two or even three Yankee captains entering the HOF on the same day but it won’t happen.
Thurman Munson and Don Mattingly were not elected to the HOF yesterday by a committee, so neither will be joining Derek Jeter (expected to get in, perhaps unanimously, by the writers) and Tommy John was not elected either.
Elected were Marvin Miller and Ted Simmons.
Miller, who died in 2012 at the age of 95, was a union leader who fought for players rights, such as free agency and against the reserve clause and as a result, player’s salaries skyrocketed.
Simmons, a switch-hitting C, played for St. Louis 1968-1980, Milwaukee 1981-1985, and Atlanta 1986-1988. He helped the Brewers win the 1982 AL Pennant. He got MVP consideration 7x, finished in the top 10 3x, and was an 8x All Star. His 162 g. average was .285-16-92 with an OPS+ of 118. He hit .186-3-8 in 17 postseason games. He had 2472 hits and 248 HR.
Posted in Awards, Ex-Players, Mike's Musings
Team’s brass has “ownership-level approval to offer him a record deal.”
8 yr,. $275 MM? That is my guess. Just under $35 MM a year for 8 years.
Is that the offer? Apparently the Yanks are all in, but what enables all-in?
Posted in Uncategorized
Things have been quiet, and I don’t want to get into rumors, but if the Yankees’ off-season strategy is go after Gerrit Cole, but have a Plan B in case Cole rejects the Yankees offer, Plan B probably needs some alteration.
The top two targets for the Yankees, pitching-wise, are Cole and Stephen Strasburg. The Yanks have met with both, but it is expected that Strasburg will go back to Washington. Cole is a different story.
The Yanks have wanted Cole for a long time. They drafted him out of high school but Cole decided to go to UCLA instead. Then, when the Pirates were shopping him, the Yanks wouldn’t meet the Pirates’ demands (Miguel Andujar for one) and Pittsburgh traded Cole to Houston instead.
Apparently the Yanks told Cole that the money is there. It’s up to Cole, a Southern Californian, to decide if he wants New York.
But if the Yanks can’t get Cole (and it appears, for now, that all their eggs are being placed in that basket), or Strasburg, who is or was the Yankees Plan B?
If it was Zack Wheeler, forget it now. Wheeler signed a 5-yr., $118MM deal with the Phillies yesterday.
Cole Hamels reached a 1-yr., $18MM deal with Atlanta.
There are other Plan B’s out there, like Madison Bumgarner, Dallas Keuchel, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Gio Gonzalez, but they aren’t the WOW factor Cole or Strasburg are.
And if these Plan B’s are off the market when Cole decides, and he decides against the Yankees, what then?
Besides the pursuit of Cole, the Yanks also have to see about re-signing or letting go some of their own—Brett Gardner (most likely will be back what with Hicks going to miss most of 2020), Didi Gregorius (most likely gone), Austin Romine and Dellin Betances.
Of course, Brian Cashman and Hal Steinbrenner may look to the trade market. If that is the case, Clint Frazier and/or Andujar could be names (among others) dangled.
When the Yankees DFA’d Greg Bird 10 days ago in order to set their 40-man roster, they had that time to do various things.
Bird cleared waivers and refused an outright assignment to AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
He is now a free agent.
He filled in nicely for Mark Teixeira at the end of 2015, hitting .261-11-31 in 46 games (OPS+ 135) but since then has been injury prone, playing in just 140 games in the last 4 seasons, going .194-21-67, OPS+ 80. He didn’t play at all in 2016 and in just 10 games in 2019.
When he was healthy, in the 2015 and 2017 postseasons, he hit .250 with 3 HR and 6 RBI in 14 games.
Update: Pittsburgh named Derek Shelton as their new manager. He was bench coach for the Twins the past two seasons and once managed in the Yankees’ farm system.
Last week, in setting their 40 man roster, the Yanks DFA’d Nestor Cortes, Jr.
Today they traded him to Seattle for international bonus money.
From MLB.com:
Cortes, who will turn 25 on Dec. 10, posted a 5-1 record and 5.67 ERA in 33 games last year as a long reliever for the Yankees. He also made one spot start in September.
Since Greg Bird was DFA’d at the same time, it remains to be seen whether the Yanks can get something for him.
Jacoby Ellsbury was just released, not DFA’d.
From Bryan Hoch at MLB.com:
The Yankees are preparing to make history with the addition of Rachel Balkovec, who will become one of the first female full-time hitting coaches hired by a big league organization, The New York Times reported on Friday evening.
The 32-year-old Balkovec signed her contract on Nov. 8, according to the Times, and is slated to report to the Yankees’ Spring Training complex in Tampa, Fla., on Feb. 1. Balkovec is expected to be based in Tampa and will serve as a roving instructor throughout the organization.
…
Yankees hitting coordinator Dillon Lawson told the Times that the club hired Balkovec based on her qualifications, which include two master’s degrees in the science of human movement and experience at several Minor League clubs.
“It’s an easy answer to why we chose Rachel for this role,” Lawson told the newspaper. “She’s a good hitting coach, and a good coach, period.”
A product of Omaha, Neb., Balkovec earned recognition as a part-time strength and conditioning coach in the Cardinals’ organization in 2012, prompting her appointment as the Minor League strength and conditioning coordinator for the Cardinals from 2014-15. As such, she became the first woman to hold a full-time strength and conditioning position in affiliated baseball.
…
Since August, Balkovec has been researching eye tracking for hitters and hip movement for pitchers at Driveline Baseball, a data-driven performance training center in Washington state. The Yankees tabbed Driveline’s Sam Briend this past summer to head their organizational pitching blueprint, and Balkovec hopes to apply her expertise to the club’s hitters.
No, it wasn’t an April Fool’s joke. The Yankees signed Zack Granite to a minor league deal.
At first, when you read it, you thought you saw Zack Greinke, didn’t you? Like many others, you did a double take.
Nope, it is not the top-flight pitcher (who isn’t a free agent anyway), but an OF named Zack Granite, 27, lefty hitter who had 93 MLB at bats with the Twins in 2017. Of his 22 hits (.237), 19 were singles. OPS+ 66. 1 HR, 13 RBI. OF depth. Especially in CF.
Granite is from Staten Island and went to Seton Hall. He hit .290-3-37 at AAA (119 games, Rangers organization) in 2019. 25 SB. So has some speed, no power.
From the NY Post, the Ellsbury departure could get ugly:
On Friday, multiple sources told The Post, right after Ellsbury cleared release waivers, the Yankees sent a letter to the Players Association notifying them of their intention to convert Ellsbury’s contract from guaranteed to non-guaranteed, thereby liberating them from the outfielder’s $21 million salary for 2020 as well as a $5 million buyout of the $21 million team option for 2021. The basis of the effort is the Yankees’ contention Ellsbury, who missed the entire 2018 and 2019 seasons due to multiple injuries, received medical treatment at Progressive Medical Center in Atlanta for multiple years without the Yankees’ authorization. The exact time period is in question, hence the uncertainty about how much, if any, of the $127 million the Yankees already have paid Ellsbury will be in play.
The union, livid with the Yankees’ maneuver, made it clear it would challenge the team on Ellsbury’s behalf and hinted at a willingness to play offense as well as defense.
If Ellsbury, who is represented by agent Scott Boras, files a grievance against the Yankees, an independent arbitrator would resolve the matter unless the two sides can come to a settlement. Baseball’s Basic Agreement mandates a hearing take place within one year of the grievance filing.
The Basic Agreement, most importantly, asserts, on page 59: “Any treatment a Player receives for a Work-Related Injury by a health care provider who is not affiliated with the Club must be authorized by the Club in advance of the treatment in accordance with Regulation 2 of the [Uniform Player Contract].”
That’s the edict the Yankees allege Ellsbury violated. In order to prove that, the Yankees — who didn’t have insurance on Ellsbury’s 2020 contract, after getting reimbursed at a 75-percent rate for the $42 million he earned over the prior two seasons — must display that he received treatment there related to his work, rather than a personal-health issue.
As for the PA’s mention of potential contract violations by the Yankees, the union could investigate whether the team was responsible for a media report implying Ellsbury might have used illegal performance-enhancing drugs at Progressive Medical Center, an insinuation that could be viewed as breaking the rules of the game’s Joint Drug Agreement. Ironically, if baseball did discover Ellsbury used illegal PEDs, his contract would be protected, as per the Basic Agreement, and he’d serve a suspension, during which he wouldn’t get paid.
Lastly, stay tuned. The Houston cheating scandal could wind up with one hell of a punishment.
Posted in Managers and Coaches, Media, Mike's Musings, Minors, Offseason Moves, Players, Scandal
